Zachary Black: Duke of Debauchery (Dangerous Dukes 2)

‘I will not be told by you what I shall do or what I shall wear.’

‘You will if you do not wish to find yourself face first over my knee, with your skirts thrown up to your waist, whilst I thrash your bare bottom a rosy red for daring to disobey!’ Hawksmere assured harshly.

Georgianna gasped at the crudeness of the threat. A threat she knew this man to be more than capable of carrying out. ‘You are a barbarian, sir.’

He bared his teeth in a smile. ‘All men are barbarians at heart, my lady.’

Georgianna repressed a shudder as the conversation brought back the painful memory of the violence she had suffered at André’s hands. A violence she would not have believed possible of the once gentle man she had thought she knew and loved. A violence which had left her both blind and fighting for her life.

Again she wondered if Hawksmere would believe her, trust that she only spoke the truth, if she were to tell him of that terrible night when André had tried to kill her. When he thought he had killed her. It was only luck, and the arrival of a local farmer who had heard the shots being fired and feared for his livestock, that had ensured she had not died that night.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Hawksmere demanded shrewdly.

Would he believe her if she were to show him the scars her body carried from that night?

They were undoubtedly the scars left by a bullet wound, but there was no guarantee, even if Georgianna were to bare her flesh, that Hawksmere would any more believe it was André Rousseau himself who had inflicted them than the duke believed the information she had brought to him regarding Bonaparte’s intended escape from Elba.

Georgianna had little in her life now except the small amount of pride left to her. She feared she might lose that, too, if Hawksmere were to both ridicule and scorn, and to disbelieve the physical scars she bore as proof of André Rousseau’s complete disregard for her.

Hatred was far too strong a word to use to describe the calculated way in which André had come to the conclusion that she had outlived her purpose. He had been completely unemotional that night in the woods before he shot her, having assured her it was not a personal action, rather it was that he had no more use for her.

She could not bear to now have Zachary Black, the scornful Duke of Hawksmere, prod and poke at the even deeper wound that had been inflicted that night upon her heart and soul.

She raised her chin. ‘I do not care for your threats.’

‘No?’

‘No!’

He shrugged wide shoulders. ‘Then do as I say and wear the lilac gown for dinner this evening.’

‘I am not hungry.’

‘You will eat, Georgianna,’ Hawksmere bit out determinedly. ‘As I also have to eat. And I have no intentions of looking across my dinner table at the unpleasant sight of a scarecrow in a black mourning gown.’

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘You are exceedingly cruel.’

‘I am, yes,’ he acknowledged unapologetically. ‘Perhaps if you had eaten your breakfast, as I instructed you to do…’ He shrugged. ‘But you did not, so there it is.’

‘I told you then, I was not hungry.’

‘And I distinctly recall telling you that you are too thin,’ he countered forcefully. ‘You look as if a stray breath of wind might blow you away. It is a fact that most gentlemen prefer a little meat on their women.’

‘It is not my intention to be attractive to any gentleman.’

‘Then you have succeeded. Admirably so, in fact,’ Hawksmere added grimly.

‘And most especially to you,’ she concluded fiercely.

‘Most especially me?’ he repeated softly, dark brows raised speculatively.

‘Yes.’ Her cheeks were flushed.

Hawksmere gave a slow smile. ‘Then I am sorry to inform you that I do not appear to find the los

s of your curves to have affected my own physical ardour in the slightest.’

‘And I am sorry to inform you that I am not in the least interested in a single one of your likes or dislikes,’ she replied heatedly.